Expert-Led Training: Proven Methods, Real Transformations

Dog training is like balancing on a tightrope. We want our dogs to be happy, engaged and motivated. Yet we also need precision which often leads to a loss of enthusiasm. It’s a delicate dance. Once dogs have learned the exercises it becomes a challenge to maintain them. Dogs get bored, they lose enthusiasm and the exercises degrade. In this class we will look at a variety of strategies and games to maintain motivation for all exercises. You will learn how to get precision without losing animation. We will look at using aides to help achieve balance and, more importantly, how to fade them. You will learn how to break exercises down to keep the pieces fun and exciting without losing accuracy. You will learn how to use backchaining, jackpot training and how to handle anticipation. You will also learn how to balance your dog’s arousal to ensure they are in an optimal state to perform at a high level. Whether you are starting to put the pieces together or your dog is competing, this course will help you maintain enthusiasm without losing precision.

Not all dogs are high drive. In fact, most dogs fall into the average- to lower-drive range, and it can be more challenging to motivate them. Handlers often assume they can’t increase a dog’s arousal—that the dog is simply “that way.” But that’s not necessarily true. In many cases, we can increase arousal; we just need to be creative.

Play is about more than the toy or the game. It’s a shared experience, shaped by the relationship between dog and handler. The presence, timing, energy, and expectations of the handler influence how a dog experiences engagement, effort, and arousal. This workshop explores play through a relational lens, focusing on how connection, shared intent, and co-regulation support a dog’s ability to stay present and engaged.

Many handlers notice that engagement shifts depending on how involved they are, or that play feels easy one moment and strained the next. Rather than teaching specific games or techniques, this session invites participants to observe how their dog responds within the relationship itself. How does the dog change when the handler is more active, more still, more directive, or more responsive? How does connection support your dog, and when might it ask more than they’re ready to give? How does your dog respond to closeness, interaction, and attention? What does mutual engagement look like for different dogs, and how does it shift under excitement or stress?

Participants will learn how to recognize relational patterns in play, understand why some dogs are more socially driven than object-driven, and explore how small changes in interaction can support regulation, clarity, and trust. By the end of this workshop, handlers often find they feel more confident reading their dog’s responses and more intentional about how they show up in play. This workshop is designed for handlers who want to deepen their understanding of their dog, refine how they engage, and use engagement as a way to notice, adjust, and respond more intentionally.

If you compete in Rally, lateral movement is a requirement, but even if you just want to teach your dog a more solid understanding of heel, this skill is a good one to have. I use sidesteps all the time when I’m heeling, to help bring the dog closer to me, reduce crabbing, and straighten out crooked sits.

We invest countless hours teaching behaviors and building chains that look beautiful in training—only to step into the ring and watch everything fall apart. What happened? Why does the dog suddenly struggle?

It takes some time to develop your eye, and hands to get an idea of how your performance dog's body is feeling.